BURRILLVILLE – It’s the second weekend of the New Year and safety is always a priority when it comes to children and families with these weekly Sunday features.
With milder temperatures and sunny weather forecasts for the upcoming week, it would be a great time to revisit the Fearless Dino Protector Squad’s message regarding fire safe meeting places near your apartments and houses in case of a fire. Practicing exit drills in the home could help save lives. It only takes a few minutes to practice exiting your residence with a well mapped and planned out strategy. We all know that practice makes perfect. We still have another two months of winter weather conditions and it’s always a good thing to take advantage of our traditional January thaw to practice exiting your place of residence in case of fire, and meeting at a designated safe place away from the actual fire.
Keep your distance from first responders and firefighters and rescues to help them extinguish the blaze safely. Never go back into a burning building for any reason once you are safely at your fire safe meeting place. Nothing is worth risking your life to retrieve or jeopardize the life of a firefighter attempting to bring you out to safety. Escape the fire. Run to your fire safe meeting place and let firefighters do their jobs. Inform them that the apartment or house is clear and nobody is still inside the building so they can focus on just putting out the fire and not attempt a rescue mission. It helps keep first responders and firefighters safer too.
Jim Weicherding is a Burrillville resident, and the founder and creator of an award-winning traffic safety effort Seasons of Safety. Weicherding contributes kids’ coloring cartoons, which can be printed and used to help parents discuss safety issues with their children. He has a long list of police officers and firefighters in his family and has worked with law enforcement and firefighters in a creative public safety capacity for more than two decades.
